There were air balls from long range and from close to the basket. There were missed dunks. There were dribbles off the foot and passes to spectators. There were long stretches when neither team could score.
It wasn’t a basketball skills exhibition, but when it was over Georgia State walked away with a 61-43 victory over Hofstra on Wednesday at the Sports Arena. The victory snapped the Panthers’ two-game losing streak. Manny Atkins led the Panthers with 13 points. James Vincent and Devonta White added 11 each.
“There’s no such thing as an ugly win but that may have been the ugliest 18-point win I’ve ever seen,” coach Ron Hunter said.
The game added another chapter to the book of bad basketball that has been played around the country this year. It was very similar to the teams’ meeting earlier this season won by the Pride, 52-50.
The two teams combined on Wednesday to commit 35 turnovers, 22 by the Pride. Hofstra (6-19, 3-9) shot 29.3 percent and Georgia State shot 40.8 percent. The flip side is Georgia State allowed a season low in points and reflected the effort made by Hunter and his staff to improve the team’s defense. Hunter said every minute in practice after Saturday’s 90-82 loss to Towson has been spent on defense and that will continue on Thursday.
“I’d rather be able to guard them than make some shots,” Hunter said.
Georgia State (13-14, 8-6) won despite a second consecutive sub-par night from leading scorer R.J. Hunter. The freshman scored 6 points – 11.6 below his season average -- and missed seven of his 10 field-goal attempts after missing 13 of his 16 attempts in Saturday’s loss to Towson.
“He’s in a mini-slump right now,” Ron Hunter said. “Every shooter goes through slumps. He hasn’t had one the entire year.”
The Panthers received a scare when Atkins, the third-best scorer, was fouled on a layup attempt and slammed his jaw into the bottom of the basketball support early in the second half. Atkins was able to walk off the court and returned a few minutes later. He said his neck hurt but predicted that he would be fine.
Rashaad Richardson stopped a scoreless stretch that lasted longer than 2 ½ minutes with a 3-pointer that gave the Panthers a 43-25 lead with 11:26 left.
The Pride answered with a 7-2 run to cut the Panthers’ lead to 48-36 with 6:32 left.
After a basket by Daquan Brown, Hofstra’s Stevie Mejia added a 3-pointer to cut Georgia State’s lead to nine with less than five minutes remaining.
White hit two free throws to give Georgia State an 11-point lead. He followed that with a steal and then completed a three-point play to give the Panthers a 55-41 lead with 3:31 lead.
White added another steal on Hofstra’s ensuing possession and Manny Atkins hit a layup to give Georgia State a 57-41 lead.
“I’m just going to look at the bottom line,” Hunter said as he folded up the box score to show nothing but the final score. “We have played well and lost and that’s not a good feeling. What this is a sign of is maturity. This is the same type of game that we played Hofstra and lost. For me, that’s a ton of improvement.”
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